CATCH WHO CATCH CAN!
I DO not want to say more about the war or my doings during it than is
strictly necessary to my purpose. The great man to whom I have referred
took a note of my qualifications. Nothing came of this for a good many
months, during which I obtained a commission, went through my training,
and was for three months fighting in France. Then I was called back,
and assigned to non-combatant service (it was not always strictly that,
as a nasty scar on my forehead, the result of a midnight “scrap” in a
South American seaport where I happened to be on business, remains to
testify). My knowledge of various parts of the world and my command of
languages made me of value for the quasi-diplomatic, quasi-detective
job with which I was entrusted, and I continued to be employed on
it throughout the war. It entailed a great deal of traveling by sea
and land, and a lot of roughing it; it was interesting and sometimes
amusing; there was, of course, no glory in it. I was a mole, working
underground; there were a lot of us. For the best part of a year I was
out of Europe; I was often out of reach of letters, though now and
then I got one from Aunt Bertha, giving me such home news as there was,
and copying out extracts from what she described as “Waldo’s miserable
letters” from France—meaning thereby not unhappy—he wrote very
cheerfully—but few, short, and scrappy. Sir Paget, it appeared, had
found some sort of advisory job—a committee of some kind—in connection
with the Foreign Office.
It was when I came back to Europe, in the spring of 1916, and was
staying for a few days at a small town in the South of France—I
was at the time covering my tracks, pending the receipt of certain
instructions for which I was waiting, but there is no harm in saying
now that the town was Ste. Maxime—that I ran into Lucinda Knyvett. That
is almost literal. I came round a sharp corner of the street from one
direction, she from another. A collision was so narrowly avoided that I
exclaimed, “_Pardon!_” as I came to an abrupt stop and raised my hat.
She stopped short too; the next moment she flung out both her hands
to me, crying, “You, Julius!” Then she tried to draw her hands back,
murmuring, “Perhaps you won’t——!” But I had caught her hands in mine
and was pressing them. “Yes! And it’s you, Lucinda!”
It was about midday, and she readily accepted my suggestion that we
should lunch together. I took her to a pleasant little restaurant on
the sea-front. It was bright, warm, calm weather; we ate our meal out
of doors, in the sunshine. In reply to her inquiries—made without any
embarrassment,—I told her what Cragsfoot news I had. She, in return,
told me that Arsenio—he also was mentioned without embarrassment—had
gone to Italy when that country entered the war, and was at this moment
on the staff of some General of Division; he wrote very seldom, she
added, and, with that, fell into silence, as she sipped a glass of wine.
She had changed from a girl into a woman; yet I did not divine in
her anything like the development I had marked in Nina Frost. In
appearance, air, and manner she was the Lucinda whom I had known at
Cragsfoot; her eyes still remotely pondering, looking inwards as well
as outwards, the contour of her face unchanged, her skin with all its
soft beauty. But she was thinner, and looked rather tired.
“Arsenio told me that you saw me in the taxi that day,” she said
suddenly.
“He must have been very much amused, wasn’t he? He certainly made
a pretty fool of me! And put the cap on it by coming to the—to the
church, didn’t he?”
“I suppose, when once he’d met you, he was bound to go there, or you’d
have suspected.”
“He could have made some excuse to leave me, and not turned up again.”
She did not pursue her little effort to defend Valdez; she let it go
with a curious smile, half-amused, half-apologetic. I smiled back.
“Monkey Valdez, I think!” said I. She would not answer that, but her
smile persisted. “You were looking very happy and bonny,” I added.
“I was happy that day. I had at last done right.”
“The deuce you had!” That was to myself. To her I said, rather dryly,
“It certainly was at the last, Lucinda.”
“It was as soon as I knew—as soon as I really knew.”
The waiter brought coffee. She took a cigarette from me, and we both
began to smoke.
“And it’s true that I didn’t dare to face Waldo. I was physically
afraid. He’d have struck me.”
“Never!” I exclaimed, indignant at the aspersion on my kinsman.
“Oh, but yes!—I thought that he would fight Arsenio that night at
Cragsfoot—the night Arsenio first kissed me.” She let her cigarette
drop to the ground, and leant back in her chair. Her eyes were on mine,
but the shadow of the veil was thick. “It all began then—at least, I
realized the beginning of it. It all began then, and it never stopped
till that day when I ran away. Shall I tell you about it?”
“We were all very fond of you—all of us. I wish you would.”
She laid her hand on my arm for a moment. “I couldn’t have told
then—perhaps I can now. But, dear Julius, perhaps not quite plainly.
There’s shame in it. Some, I think, for all of us—most, I suppose, for
me.”
At this point a vision of Aunt Bertha’s “nice woman” flitted before
my mind’s eye; it was a moment for her ministrations—or ought to have
been, perhaps. Lucinda was rather ruminative than distressed.
“We were very happy that summer. I had never had anything quite like
it. Mother and I went to lunches and teas—and I’d just begun to go to a
few dances. But people didn’t ask us to stay in country houses. Three
days’ visit to Mrs. Wiseman at Oxford was an event—till Cragsfoot came!
I love that old house—and I shall never see it again!—Oh, well——! The
boys were great friends; all three of us were. If anything, Waldo and
I took sides against Arsenio, chaffing him about his little foreign
ways, and so on, you know. Waldo called him Monkey; I called him
‘Don’—sometimes ‘Don Arsenio.’ I called Waldo just ‘Waldo’—and I should
have called Arsenio just by his name, only that once, when we were
alone, he asked me to, rather sentimentally—something about how his
name would sound on my lips! So I wouldn’t—to tease him. I thought him
rather ridiculous. I’ve always thought him ridiculous at times. Well,
then, Nina Frost took to coming a good deal; Miss Fleming had pity on
her, as she told me—her mother wasn’t long dead, you know, and she was
all alone at Briarmount with a governess. Do you remember Fräulein
Borasch? No? I believe you hardly remember Nina? You hardly ever came
on excursions, and so on, with us. The boys told me all that sort of
thing bored ‘old Julius.’ Nina rather broke up our trio; we fell into
couples—you know how that happens? The path’s too narrow, or the boat’s
too small, or you take sides at tennis. And so on. For the first time
then the boys squabbled a little—for me. I enjoyed that—even though I
didn’t think victory over little Nina anything to boast about. Well,
then came that day.”
Lucinda leant forward towards me, resting her arms on the table between
us; she was more animated now; she spoke faster; a slight flush came on
her cheeks; I likened it to an afterglow.
“Nina had been there all the afternoon, but she went home after tea.
We’d been quite jolly, though. But after dinner Waldo whispered to me
to come out into the garden. I went—it was a beautiful evening—and
we walked up and down together for a few minutes. Waldo didn’t say
anything at all, but somehow I felt something new in him. I became a
little nervous—rather excited. We were at the end of the walk, just
where it goes into the shrubbery. He said, ‘Lucinda!’—and then stopped.
I turned sharp round—towards the house, suddenly somehow afraid to
go into the shrubbery with him; his voice had sounded curious. And
there—he must have come up as silently as a cat—was Arsenio, looking
so impishly triumphant! Waldo had turned with me; I heard him say
‘Damn!’ half under his breath. ‘Do I intrude?’ Arsenio asked. Waldo
didn’t answer. The moon was bright; I could see their faces. I felt
my cheeks hot; Waldo looked so fierce, Arsenio so mischievous. I felt
funnily triumphant. I laughed, cried, ‘Catch who catch can!’ turned,
and ran down the winding path through the shrubbery. I ran quite a long
way. You know how the path twists? I looked back once, and saw Arsenio
running after me, laughing: I didn’t see Waldo, but I could hear his
footsteps. I ran round another turn. By then Arsenio was quite close. I
was out of breath and stopped under a big tree. I put my back against
it, and faced Arsenio; I think I put out my hands to keep him off—in
fun, you know. But he came and took hold of my hands, and pulled me
to him and kissed me on my lips. ‘Caught!’ he said as he let me go.
Then I saw Waldo just a few yards off, watching us. I was trembling
all over. I ran away from them, back towards the house; but I didn’t
dare to go straight in; I felt that I shouldn’t be able to answer, if
anybody spoke to me. I sat down on the bench that stands close by the
door, but is hidden from it by the yew hedge. Presently I heard them
coming; I heard Waldo speaking angrily, but as they got nearer the
house, he stopped talking, so I didn’t hear anything that he said. But
Arsenio told me—later on—that he said that English gentlemen didn’t
do things like that, though dirty Spaniards might—and so on. I sat
where I was, and let them go in. But presently I felt that I must see
what was happening. So I went in, and found them quarreling: at least,
Waldo was abusing Arsenio—but you know about that; you were there.
I thought they’d fight—they would have if you and Sir Paget hadn’t
been there—but somehow, by now, I didn’t mind if they did. I wasn’t
frightened any more; I was excited. You know how it ended. I didn’t
then, because after a good deal of it Sir Paget sent me to bed—don’t
you remember? I went to bed, but I didn’t go to sleep for ever so long.
I felt that something great had happened to me. Men had tried to kiss
me a few times before; one or two had managed just to kiss my cheek in
a laughing kind of way. This was different to me. And there was Waldo
too! I was very young. I suddenly seemed to myself immensely important.
I wondered—oh, how I wondered—what they would do the next morning—and
what I should do. I imagined conversations—how I should be very stiff
and dignified—and Arsenio very penitent, but protesting his devotion.
But I couldn’t imagine how Waldo would behave. Anyhow, I felt that the
next morning would be the most awfully exciting moment in my life, that
anything might happen.”
Lucinda paused, looking at me with a smile that mocked the girl whose
feelings she had been describing. “Nothing did!”
After another pause she went on: “Later on, of course, I heard how
that was. I’ve heard it from both of them! Arsenio didn’t really care
for me at that time, though Waldo did. And Arsenio was very fond of
Waldo; he felt he’d behaved rather badly, and he didn’t bear malice
against Waldo for abusing him. Arsenio is malicious in a way; it’s
fun to him to make people look and feel silly; but he doesn’t harbor
malice. He’s not rancorous. He went to Waldo’s room early in the
morning—while Waldo was still in bed—and apologized. He said he must
have had a glass too much of champagne, that he hadn’t meant anything,
and that if he’d had the least notion how Waldo would feel about
it—and so on! In fact, he made light of the whole thing, so far as I
was concerned. Waldo listened to it all in silence, and at the end
just said, ‘All right, old chap. There’s an end of it.’ But he didn’t
really forgive Arsenio—and he didn’t forgive me, though it hadn’t been
my fault—had it? In the first-place, between us we’d made him give
himself away; he’s very proud, and he hates that. In the second, he’s
much better than you’d suppose at seeing into things; he has a sort of
instinct; and from that day, right on, he was instinctively afraid of
Arsenio; he felt that, if Arsenio chose, he could be dangerous—about
me. I know it, from the way he used to speak of him later on—when we
were engaged—always trying to probe me, to find out my feelings about
Arsenio, whether I was thinking about him, whether I ever heard from
him, and things like that. All the time he never had Arsenio out of
his mind. Well—he was right.
“But I knew nothing of all that at the time. To me they seemed just a
little sulky to one another, and to me, too. Otherwise they ignored
what had happened, made nothing of it, never referred to it in any
way. I was most frightfully hurt and—and let down. To me it had been a
great beginning—of something, though I didn’t know of what. I couldn’t
understand how Arsenio could treat it as nothing—that he shouldn’t
apologize and abase himself if he’d meant nothing serious, that he
shouldn’t speak to me again if he really cared for me. I felt utterly
bewildered. Only I had a strange feeling that somehow, in some way,
Arsenio had acquired a right over me by kissing my lips. Of that
feeling I never got rid.”
From a frown she broke into a smile again, as she went on. “It was a
miserable week—till we went. Both the boys avoided me whenever they
could. Both have told me why since, but I don’t believe that either of
them told me the truth. Arsenio said it was because he couldn’t trust
himself not to make love to me, and he had practically promised that
he wouldn’t. I think it was because he thought I would expect to be
made love to (I did!), and he didn’t want to; he wasn’t in love with
me then; besides he was afraid of Waldo. Waldo said it was because he
was ashamed of himself. I daresay he was ashamed, but it was much more
because he was in love with me, but was too proud to seem to compete
with Arsenio. Whatever the reasons, the result was—triumph for Nina!
She was invited over every day and all day. Both of them tried to keep
with her—in order to avoid me. I wasn’t exactly jealous, because I knew
that they really wanted to be with me—but for the complications. But I
was exasperated to see that she thought—as, of course, she must—that
she had cut me out. How her manner changed! Before this she had adored
me—as younger girls do older ones sometimes; ‘Darling Lucinda!’ and so
on! I’d noticed her trying to imitate me, and she used to ask where I
got such pretty frocks. Now she patronized me, told me how I must wish
I had a nice home (she knew I hadn’t) like Cragsfoot or Briarmount,
and said what a pity it was my mother couldn’t give me more chances of
riding, so that I could improve! She did ride much better than I—which
made it worse.”
Here I looked at Lucinda, asking leave to laugh. She gave it in her own
low-murmuring laughter at herself. “So it ended. We went away, and I
was very glad when we did. I went away without either Arsenio or Waldo
having said to me a single word that mattered.”
“I must have been very dull to have noticed nothing—except just the
quarrel; well, the quarrel itself, and how you looked while it was
going on—till you were sent to bed.”
“How did I look?”
“Just as you did when I saw you in the taxi at the corner by
Marlborough House.”
“I’m very glad I didn’t see you! You’d have brought back what I’d
managed to put out of my mind. As though I could put it out of my life!”
Suddenly and abruptly she pushed her chair back from the table. “Aren’t
we staying here a frightfully long time? That waiter’s staring at us.”
“But surely I haven’t heard all the story yet?”
“All the story? No. Only the prologue. And the prologue’s a comedy,
isn’t it? A children’s comedy! The rest isn’t quite like that. Pay the
bill and let’s go. For a walk, if you like—and have time.”
“I ought just to call at my hotel—the _Méditerranée_—and see if there’s
anything for me—any telegrams. If there aren’t, I should like to sit by
the sea, and smoke, and hear the next chapter.”
At the moment Lucinda merely nodded. But as we walked away, she put her
arm in mine and said, “The next chapter is called ‘Venice,’ and it’s
rather a difficult one for me to tell.”
“I hope I’m not a person who has to have all the t’s crossed and all
the i’s dotted. Arsenio has—or had—a ‘palazzo’ at Venice?”
“Yes. We stayed there.”